Comments

This camera really does nothing. It merely records things and the police use it as reference I imagine. We have had a rowdier summer than usual in the eye of that camera, so I am not seeing any results. Its pretty much business as usual.

More tame than what? I haven't noticed any increase in quiet or calmness on Flatbush along Fenimore or Rutland. The summer has been quiet noisy and busy to my ears and eyes. Not sure if it was any worse than last summer, but certainly no better.

Flatbush may not be as rowdy, but the site lines of this camera have been. In front of 66 Fenimore especially. Late nite drunken dice games, music, dealing, 24/7 basketball court set up on the sidewalk. This has been the worst summer yet (since summer of 2003).

I am with Tom, when there are gatherings -- which are intermittent -- they are way worse than any I have seen before. This is the first year I have seen open gambling on the street. The day of the Flatbush Street Fair I stopped counting at 70 in terms of how many people were gathered in front of 66 Fenimore.

And yes, I called the police several times. I did observe a cruiser stop early in the evening (9:30 pm or so) when the crowd was very large and have a pleasant chat with the folks involved. No one seemed to even care a police cruiser was present, so I am doubtful this car was even responding to a call. Essentially there was absolutely nothing done and zero impact if in fact that particular cruiser was intended to disperse the crowd.

What I did see was lots of public urination, drug dealing, etc. -- business as usual. I might add that none of the people in the crowd live in this building.

The fact the police/precinct have absolutely no intention of seeing this corner cleaned up in the immediate future couldn't be any clearer to me. We get a lot of lip service from the precinct about calls, etc. but in general we get no response whatsoever from the police and therefore all remains status quo with the continuing degradation of that corner.

There's been a semi-regular Friday night craps game on Rutland and Flatbush for years--I've heard it was going on long before I moved to the area. I think it moves from the sidewalk to the alley next to 16 Rutland sometimes. I've never seen it get larger than 12 people or so, but it includes plenty of drinking and yelling.

As for the regular hanging out on the stoop and playing music, it really isn't against the law--at least not as far as the police are concerned.

Yes but if you don't live in the building it is called trespassing and that is against the law, as well as trafficing narcotics on said stoop. Loud music is a quality of life infraction (especially at one in the morning)

I don't think much of the 71st precinct to be honest. They look the other way at a lot of casual crime. The genius of the Giuliani administration was they cracked down on this casual crime across the city... and what do you know, major crime dropped as well. Those involved in minor crimes are or often become the players in larger and more serious crimes.

Don't believe that crime is really at record lows these days - NYPD now under reports all incidents. If you go to report something they would have listed as X a decade ago, they now record it as X minus 2.